Salad spinner devices are common and not new to the marketplace. All known salad spinners are designed to create centrifugal force that expedites removal of residual water which accumulates after rinsing leafy vegetables. This is done to avoid soggy greens which can detract from the texture and quality of a salad. Each known device in the prior art employs a mechanical method for swiftly rotating a perforated container filled with rinsed greens inside a vessel that captures and contains water after its removal. This mechanical method is not the subject of this disclosure as it could be satisfactorily achieved by using one of several drive mechanisms already known in the public domain.
Most salad spinner devices consist of five main components: (1) a rigid and stationary exterior main bowl with (2) an exterior lid, (3) an interior rotatable colander with (4) an engageable interior lid, and (5) a rotary drive device that is fastened to the exterior lid which when activated by the user, spins the interior lid and colander in unison. The exterior lid, rotary drive, and interior lid are usually combined in a lid assembly. The user typically will fill the colander with leafy greens and wash them thoroughly under a faucet. Then, the dripping colander is placed inside the main bowl on a countertop, the lid assembly (containing the exterior lid, interior lid and the rotary device) is placed on top of the bowl and the user activates the rotary drive device to create the centrifugal force needed to remove water from the greens. The colander rotation has to stop before the dewatered greens can be removed.
A brake is an additional component that is sometimes found on salad spinners. The colander, its contents, and the interior lid represent a considerable mass that, when rotating together in a low-friction environment, take a long time to slow back down to stationary when application of spinning force is ceased. Simpler devices without a brake require the user to either (1) simply wait for the rotation to decay or (2) remove the lid and stop the fast-spinning colander by hand. The former method adds considerable time to the operation, while the latter technique is awkward and messy.
One type of brake known since at least French Patent 743,906, issued Jan. 16, 1933, uses a simple exterior lid-mounted elastic button 21 to selectively contact a point on the interior lid located off-axis, that is, radially-outward of the center. A latter example of the simple radially-displaced elastic brake is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,883 to Mulhauser. The rotating mechanism occupies the center of both devices, and apparently no thought was given to coaxially mounting the brake with the rotating mechanism. One major drawback of an off-axis, radially-displaced brake is that substantial unbalancing moment is applied to the spinning mass, making the braking action rough, loud, hard to control, and a generally unpleasant end to an otherwise elegant operation. Another drawback of the radially-displaced type of brake is that the support system for the rotating mass must be heavier to provide resistance to the unbalancing moment of the brake.
There is a need, then, for a salad spinner device that provides a smooth and balanced braking action applied coaxially with the colander axis of rotation.